Inclusions
by KADH
Summary: Irascible mother-in-law, a husband who gets stuck in Peru at the most inopportune times and a 24/7 job where bizarre is the ordinary, Sara Sidle's life is far from dull or perfect. But then that's not always a bad thing. Post 1113, The Two Mrs. Grissoms.
1. Mirror, Mirror

**Inclusions **

Between dealing with an oft irascible mother-in-law, a husband who manages to get stuck in Peru at the most inopportune times and a 24/7 job where bizarre is the ordinary, Sara Sidle's life is far from dull - or perfect.

But then sometimes that's not such a bad thing. And sometimes all it takes is a small thing to remind her of that fact.

_The third and final part in the Under the Influence series, a trio of stories inspired by episode 1113, "The Two Mrs. Grissoms." _

_Follows "Pot Shots" and "Let's (Not) Talk about Sex."_

xxxxxxx_  
><em>

_A/N: Okay, I admit it, I obsess over the smallest and weirdest things, but that necklace of Sara's has fascinated me ever since I saw the promotional pics. _

_There just had to be a story there... That and I hate loose ends..._

xxxxxxx_  
><em>

**In-clu-sion**: noun.

- The action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure. A person or thing that is included within a larger group or structure.

- Biology. Geology. Metallurgy. A body or particle recognizably distinct from the substance in which it is embedded_. _

_New Oxford American Dictionary_

**One: Mirror, Mirror**

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,

while loving someone deeply gives you courage,"

Lao Tzu

xxxxxxx

Six in the evening usually found Sara asleep. Well, if she managed to get out of work on time. And these days that proved to be a rather big_if_.

But tonight found her lingering overlong in front of the bathroom mirror, not out of vanity, but because one of the useful things she had gotten out of all her mandatory PEAP counseling sessions was that mirrors were good for giving yourself pep talks.

And tonight she certainly needed it.

If only to calm her stomach, which at the moment was fluttering with all the intensity of her having somehow managed to swallow an entire rabble of butterflies.

She took a deep breath. Then another.

She could do this.

"Dinner," she murmured. "It's only dinner. It's only dinner. It's only-"

She was cut off mid-mantra by a perplexed and frankly concerned query of "You okay?"

Her eyes flashed wide, something which came almost as much of a shock as Grissom's sudden presence beside her did, her not having realized she'd closed them in the first place. In any case, Sara hurriedly brushed aside her surprise, gave him a slightly forced smile and a little too studied a "Yeah. Why?"

Which apparently her husband didn't buy for a minute.

"For one you're talking to yourself. Out loud."

"Like you've never done it," Sara scoffed.

Grissom ignored this. "And you look nervous. Lovely," he added brushing a thumb along the bare skin at the nape of her neck, "but nervous."

Instinctively, her lips twitched at the unsought after compliment. Still, she sighed, "That's because I _am_ nervous."

"Why?"

_Why?_she mentally echoed. _Why?_

But instead she settled on saying, "Even _you_ can't be that dense."

"It's only dinner," he reminded her, leaving Sara unsure if he was deliberately parroting what he'd overheard her say earlier or if it was just one those strange happenstances which life seemed to be rife with. In any case, apparently her husband really was that clueless. Or perhaps after fifty plus years of exposure he was simply inured.

So Sara decided to spell it out for him. "With your mother. And it's never_ just__ dinner_ with her, Gil."

"You survived lunch okay."

That she had and twice and on her own but still -

And it was equally true that ever since that heated spat of theirs in the courtyard of Desert Palms there had been a very definitive thaw in the chill between mother and daughter-in-law. Of course Betty was still hard to get close to. Still questioned everything. Still had to be right about it all. Still came across as emotionally unavailable most of the time.

_Like __mother, __like __son,__indeed_.

Sara fervently hoped it wouldn't take her quite so long to win over the mother as it had the son. She didn't think she could take seven years of butterflies.

But strangely enough - though perhaps she shouldn't be all that surprised as strange and _Grissom_ sort of went together - telling off Betty had somehow managed to improve rather than further damage the relationship.

And yet -

Sara let out a long breath of "My signing still sucks. Maybe by Christmas I just might - _might_ - progress past squirrel."

"You're doing just fine," Grissom rejoined and meant it. Knew it too, as his wife had insisted on practicing her ASL during their last several Skype calls. He found hers perfectly passable, far better actually than most near beginners. A finding which hadn't surprised him in the least. Sara, he knew, never did anything halfway.

Though apparently she was not to be so easily mollified. "Just ask your mother if you don't believe me. She's always correcting me. _Always._"

"That means she likes you."

"Bullshit."

But Grissom persisted. "If she didn't like you, she wouldn't bother."

Sara shook her head. "That makes absolutely no sense."

Although the more she thought about it, that did explain a lot, and not just about her mother-in-law. And while she wondered if the same were true of Betty's other criticisms, Sara decided it best to keep this thought to herself.

In any case, Grissom apparently had something else on his mind.

"Honey," he began. The endearment and its gentle, yet firm earnestness effectively silenced any further protests. Her eyes met his in the mirror. "She appreciates it._I_ appreciate it," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze for extra emphasis. They shared a smile. Careful not to muss her hair, done up as he noticed in that way he was particularly fond of, he pressed a kiss there, murmuring, "So stop worrying."

Easier said than done.

"You about ready?" he asked giving her robe-clad form a thorough and certainly not entirely disapproving appraisal. Grissom was of course already dressed in jacket and tie, looking as well–kept and dapper as he usually did in such attire.

"Just have to dress."

"I still don't see why you can't wear the dress from the Gilbert Foundation party."

This not being the first time her husband raised this particular objection, Sara only shook her head again and patiently replied, "Like I told you before, the guys already think I only own one dress. I don't want to give your mother that same impression. Besides," she added with all the mock severity she could muster, "you stood me up. If anything you're supposed to still be in the doghouse."

"I am?"

"Well, according to Nick anyway."

"And what exactly does Nick have to do with it?"

xxxxxxx

That first shift after Betty had stopped by with pot of apologetic African violets in hand, Nick Stokes had entered the office he, Sara, Greg and Ray all shared and observing the pretty plant on her desk, asked genuinely curious as to the answer, "Flowers actually work?"

Sara didn't bother to glance up from her case file. "Work for what?"

"Getting a guy out of the doghouse."

"And who's supposed to be in the doghouse?"

"I don't know about you," Nick rejoined in that characteristic Texas drawl of his, "but where I come from, husbands get sent to the doghouse when they stand their wives up."

"They're not from Grissom," was all Sara replied.

Nick laughed, "Have an admirer we don't know about?"

Sara snorted. "Hardly. Betty."

Nick couldn't have looked more flummoxed if he tried. "What - how?" he eventually stammered.

Sara only smiled sphinx-like and satisfied into her paperwork.

xxxxxxx

"And according to you?" Grissom asked once Sara finished relating this incident to him.

His abrupt mystification was not without warrant. For the last several days hadn't seemed altogether different than his usual time home. No silent treatment, cold-shouldering or sleeping on the couch, all the things he associated with _being __in __the __doghouse,_although his notions were thankfully more rooted theory than actual experience.

In fact, the hours and days had been very much quite the contrary, now that he thought about it. Sure there had been that initially awkward conversation involving their sex life - or lack thereof as Grissom had been surprised to hear Hodges describe it. But mostly what time they were able to spend together, Sara's schedule being what it was, had been much as their favorite times usually were: quietly passionately familiarly intimate.

So if this was what _being __in __the __doghouse_ actually entailed, Grissom was starting to think perhaps it wasn't quite such a fate to fear. This was, however, only a brief thought, a very brief thought, as his wife playfully, though hurriedly and thoroughly disabused him of such notions.

"Lucky for you," she said giving him a sportive smirk, "there's time off for good behavior."

Amused now as well as bemused, he was about to inquire what precisely she meant by this, when Sara continued, this time more arch than anything, "Anyway, if you want to see me in that dress, you're just going to have to take me out somewhere yourself."

Except to Sara's surprise, Grissom didn't look the least bit daunted by the prospect. If anything, he appeared intrigued, so that all she could do was shake her head for a third time and shoo him out with an insistent, "Five minutes," so that she could finish getting ready in peace.


	2. The Affair of the Necklace

**Two: _L'affaire__ du __Collier,_ or the Affair of the Necklace**

"These gems have life in them: their colors speak, say what words fail of,"

_The __Spanish __Gypsy, __Book __One,_ Mary Evans Cross (George Eliot)

xxxxxxx

However scheduled off for that evening as she might be, Sara was still technically on-call and with the very real possibility she would be called in that night and not wanting a reprise of Nick and Ray's agog response to the dress she'd worn to the Gilbert Foundation party, Sara had originally planned to wear the simple, neat pantsuit she'd worn to Dave Phillip's wedding reception several years before, but considering that Grissom would soon be back off to Peru again and her not entirely above dressing with a desire to please - and tease - her husband even if only a little, she opted instead to risk another dress, albeit one slightly more conservative in cut, as this was of course dinner out with her mother-in-law after all.

Careful so as not to tousle her hair, she slipped the sheath over her head and proceeded to zip it up as far as she could reach. Then having slid on a pair of conservative heels, all she needed was a necklace and she'd finally be ready to go.

As for that, she went to retrieve the pretty butterfly-shaped Costa Rican puzzle box Grissom had presented her with three Christmases before. Just as it had that morning, it still contained his grandmother's ring, but over the years she'd added to the collection, or rather her husband had. These days Sara kept her not for everyday jewelry there.

Quickly locating the key, the box fell open in her hands and she couldn't help but smirk at the sight of the amber pendant positioned perhaps a little too haphazardly as it was on top. But then Sara hadn't exactly been in the best of moods when she'd last put it away. Delinquent husbands, disapproving mother-in-laws and a dead body all in the space of an hour did not a good night out make. And then there'd been Julia.

But ultimately it wasn't the thought of that evening which had caused her to pause in her replacing the necklace. Rather it was that of the afternoon when she'd first discovered its unexpected presence in said same box.

xxxxxxx

Sara had repeatedly put off emptying her bags from that final trip to Europe, her husband's tenure as a visiting _professeur_ at l'Université Paris-Sorbonne having finally come to an end. While she could have probably blamed all the extra hours she'd been working since she'd gotten back, she knew Vegas had nothing to do with her uncharacteristic in general - but more frequently habitual as of late - unpacking procrastination.

For in the end, the act signified, like nothing else did, that end of her time away and more importantly her time with Grissom. And Paris had been Paris after all. No less charming and in some ways made more so by the addition of an unseasonably large snowfall. Sara hadn't had a white Christmas in nearly fifteen years and never _un __Noël__ blanc_ so enjoyable as this. Which all meant that it had been even harder than usual to let the holiday go.

Hence it was after New Years when she unearthed her jewelry box from her carryon. Except as she did so, it felt off; strangely heavier than she remembered.

Curious, she set to open it and was surprised to find a very unfamiliar necklace perched inside.

She glanced at her watch, had already done the quick calculation to make sure she wasn't phoning in the middle of the night when she recalled that PET, or Peru Time, was, unlike Paris, only two hours ahead. Still, it should already be dark there, which meant it was possible she could catch him back in camp. Could at least if the reception cooperated, which it often did not.

So perhaps she should have been thankful when her husband readily picked up, but Sara, not bothering with _Hello,_ instead launched in with "You want to explain, Gil?"

Not unsurprisingly, he echoed uneasily, "Explain?"

His wife's "So, what did you do?" while slightly more playful, not proving all that particularly illuminating, Grissom said, "You might want to narrow it down a bit, dear."

"That necklace," she offered.

To which he let out a soft "Ah" of comprehension.

When this appeared to be all he was going to say on the matter without any further prompting, Sara sighed, "You're going to have to do better than that."

There was a long moment of dead air which left Sara under the impression her husband was carefully weighing his next words, but what she didn't know was the situation had rather pointedly reminded Grissom of a conversation he'd once had with Doc Robbins nearly seven years before, one about how his wife Judy had irrationally accused him of having as Doc termed it _sex__ on__ the__ steel_ and all because he'd taken it upon himself to buy her some very expensive underwear. At the time, Grissom had dismissed the whole thing as just another one of those incomprehensible weird things married people did. Not that he'd expected then to ever be one of those _married__ people_ himself, nor happily, too, for almost two years. Nor did Grissom believe for a moment now that his wife shared Judy's sentiments or suspicions; that that particular motive even crossed Sara's mind. Her tone was far too much of the perplexed than persecuting variety. And atonement for adultery was most certainly _not_ the reason he had chosen that necklace for his wife. Still, the seeming strange simulacrum had given him pause.

As for why he had, Grissom began a little chagrined, "It was supposed to be a surprise."

And he could hear the truth in her "It still is."

Which it was. But then Gil Grissom was as it strangely turned out, rather regularly full of surprises. Or so Sara had soon swiftly discovered.

"I was hoping you wouldn't notice," he was saying sheepishly. "Not yet at least. But I forgot this is _you_ we're talking about." Then after a beat he added, the fondness plainly evident in his assertion, "I should have known better. You seldom miss anything."

Sara couldn't help but smile. "You should take that as a compliment. After all, I learned from the best," she replied equally warm. "But, Gil, you're a little late for Christmas."

"Wasn't supposed to be for Christmas."

Of course it wasn't.

"Care to fill me in on the occasion then?"

That proved simple enough. "I thought you could wear it to the Gilbert Foundation party."

To which Sara let out an involuntary chuckle. "I never thought you one to stoop to bribery. Besides, I did already agree to go."

Even if she hadn't been all that keen on the prospect. Nor had her husband really. He didn't like parties and all the attendant dressing up to spend an evening in a crowd of strangers it entailed any more than she did. In fact, Grissom liked it even less. But Betty Grissom had asked and Sara had the feeling Betty Grissom wasn't a woman who heard the word _No _very often, if ever.

So when her husband had hesitantly offered, "We don't _have _to go," Sara had replied, "Yeah, I have the feeling your mother might not agree with you on that."

Plus, when he'd sprung it on her at the last minute, well, during those last hours right before she was set to leave Paris, he'd been so cutely, awkwardly apologetic about the whole thing, she couldn't refuse him.

Like she could ever usually refuse him anything anyway, particularly when the plea came in person. There was just something about the Grissom charm - well, that of the Gil Grissom variety - which had in her experience always proved utterly irresistible no matter what he might be asking.

Of course there had also been the added inducement of getting to see him in a suit, a sight Sara could never see too often. Unfortunately, that did little to cancel out the hassle of her having to get a dress. But she had said _yes_ and had already made an appointment to see Sandra. So there was no real need for a sweetener.

"Or have you forgotten?" asked Sara when he made no ready reply.

"No. And it's not a bribe. I just thought it would suit you," he said. "Not that you need the amendment."

Like all her husband's simple, honest admissions, this one took Sara aback and there was that smile again threatening to overtake her. Perhaps it was a good thing this wasn't a video call. Grissom didn't need any more encouragement. He was frequently incorrigible enough as it was.

Still, she couldn't keep herself from murmuring in frank admiration, "It's... it's beautiful," or inquiring, "Where on earth did you find it? M. Morel come through for you again?"

It was Grissom's turn to laugh. "No, not this time."

"Then?"

For genuine amber, particularly with this quality of inclusions, tended to be rather rare. Prized since the Stone Age as it was for the making of ornaments and jewelry, its popularity had for the better part of the last six centuries, often led to the rather rampant creation of forgeries. And knowing as she did Grissom's thoroughness in everything and anything he did, there was no way this piece was a fake.

But from the determined caginess of his "I have my sources," Sara also knew no further information would be forthcoming, ask what she would, so instead she set to better puzzle out the precise species included in the near half-dollar sized shape.

"Early form of _Apis_?" she asked after a moment.

"Naturally."

_Bees,_ she should have known, she thought, her fingers taking in the natural warmth of the stone as they brushed over its smooth surface. Grissom and his bugs. Even his most romantic of gestures tended towards the entomic variety. But then Sara rather liked that about him.

Although once she let the long beaded chain slip through her fingers to its full length, she was struck with a thought far less innocent_._

"Gil, you do realize where it falls it's a little..."

"A little what?" he prompted when her voice trailed off.

"Uh... suggestive."

Not for a moment did Sara believe his airily nonchalant, "I hadn't noticed."

So she simply stood there shaking her head before she said in a rejoining tease, "And here I thought you had a good imagination."

xxxxxxx

More carefully this time, Sara returned the pendant to its proper place in the box. As with the dress, Grissom would just have to wait for her to wear the necklace.

Served him right, even if he wasn't technically in the doghouse for leaving her -and at the last minute, too - to deal with the party and his mother all on her own. True, by the time she'd finally gotten to talk to her husband about it, she'd been able to smile, even joke with him. But during not so much.

And Betty, Betty had honestly been the worst of it.

No matter how much things between the two of them had improved, at the returning thought of her mother-in-law and the evening which lay ahead, Sara took another long, deep steadying breath.


	3. The Problem with Parents

**Three: The Particular Problem with Parents and other Random _Pensées_ on Marriage, Love and Family **

"Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law," Japanese proverb

xxxxxxx

At least the night of the Gilbert Foundation party, Sara hadn't had a heck of a lot of time to be nervous. With work what it was, she'd barely had enough to shower and dress and make herself look at least halfway presentable. Besides, as her husband was to meet her there after what was now their typical several weeks apart, she was looking forward to at least that part of the evening.

Until she'd arrived only to find her husband hadn't - and wasn't.

Honestly, part of her hadn't been all that surprised. She loved that man, had loved him nearly as long as she could remember, awkwardly, sometimes even angrily, but she loved him all the same. Of course that didn't mean he didn't do things that drove her absolutely crazy and all the time.

But Sara, not all that keen on exercises in futility, had no intention whatsoever of changing him. Besides, he was perfectly capable of change all by himself.

However there were times when married or no, Gil Grissom was still Gil Grissom. Which meant he still had his obsessive, absent-minded tendencies. Not calling his wife to tell her he wasn't coming until after she was already at the event they were both supposed to be attending being a perfect case in point. Although judging from their connection - or lack thereof - perhaps that hadn't entirely been her husband's fault. Still -

If only his absence had been the worst of it. That she could have easily rolled with.

Except it was a little hard to _just_ _roll__ with __it_ when the way too attractive, smart, successful and very much adored by your mother-in-law woman you hadn't known was your husband's former lover turns up at a murder scene.

Sara genuinely hadn't known about Julia. Not that that had come as all that much a surprise either. Nor did it have anything to do with them needing to _know__ each __other__ better_, as Betty had doggedly maintained. Grissom hadn't volunteered up information on his relationship with Heather Kessler either. Perhaps there was some comfort to be found in the fact that her husband wasn't the sort to kiss and tell, but Sara really wasn't all that keen on being blind-sided.

And blind-sided didn't begin to cover it.

Even Julia Sara probably could have handled - eventually. But man was it hard not to feel inadequate after such an introduction. With the professor just as distinguished and highly respected an expert in her field as Grissom was in his, no wonder Betty couldn't help but gush over her. Obviously, Julia Holden was the woman the elder Mrs. Grissom thought her son should have married all along. Unfortunately, it was equally plainly and painfully obvious that Sara was most certainly not.

And Sara had to admit Betty had a point. Confident, uninhibited, accomplished and already part of the world Grissom had grown up in, she couldn't have come up with a better match. And that was neglecting the fact that Julia was definitely pretty.

Okay, _pretty_ was a gross understatement, and Sara knew it. She certainly hadn't needed Nick's _Well,__she__'__s__ really__ pretty _to tell her so. Not that she wanted or had ever wanted Stokes to think of her in that way, but no woman wanted to hear_ that _about her husband's ex, true or no.

For hard as it was to concede, if only to herself, there were still times, even after all these years, after all Grissom had said and done, when Sara had a hard time fitting herself into the fabric of his life.

She knew he loved her. She did. Didn't doubt it - or him - for a minute. It was in the way he looked at her, took her hand, kissed her, even when they weren't alone. In how he touched her when they were. In the most ordinary things on the most ordinary of days. That wasn't the problem.

It was the _why_ she didn't always get. Why after all those years, all the women he'd come across, all the choices he'd had, Gil Grissom had chosen _her_ of all people. Sara didn't understand it. Probably never would. But he had.

Only a few days before, in a bout of self-conscious candor Sara had confessed as much to her husband. That morning, Grissom's first back in Vegas, the two of them had been curled up together in bed talking in that quiet, comfortable postcoital way of theirs.

And in reply Grissom had said sans preamble, quotation or explanation, "I married you. I only ever wanted to marry you," with such matter-of-fact frankness, she'd been stunned and simply stared at him for what was probably an inordinately long moment. Something which didn't seem to disconcert him in the least.

Though he had laughed and Sara, too, when having finally regained some semblance of composure, she had said, unable to resist the tease, "Well, apart from Nicole Daley."

"And you say _I _never forget anything," he'd rejoined with a smirk. But soon his face softened into tenderness as he added in that ever utterly arresting way of his, "Sara, you may not have been my first, but you'll always be my last."

No, Sara didn't doubt it or him for a minute. And she'd certainly never had anyone love her the way Grissom did, however clumsy, messy and problematic as that love had been for so long or how sure, so completely and yet imperfect it still remained.

So it wasn't the husband or his unexpected and highly inconvenient absence which had bothered Sara. Dead bodies, nearly being blown up twice, that didn't much faze her either. After nearly fifteen years as a crime scene investigator, those things she could do. True, Julia had been an unpleasant surprise - or at least learning precisely on how intimate a terms the woman had been with Grissom had been - but in the end, Betty Grissom had been worse, far worse.

Sara wasn't sure what she'd actually expected Betty to be like. However Catherine hadn't been far off the mark._Like __mother __like __son_, indeed. Except there was just something about Betty's persistent criticism that rankled in ways Grissom's gentle suggestions never had. Or maybe it was just the newness. Or Sara's seeming inability to do a single thing that didn't somehow serve to vex her mother-in-law.

"That's the problem with marriage," Doc Robbins had once intoned in that sage way of his, when in response to finding Sara having taken sanctuary down in the morgue, she had provided him with the terse one-word explanation of _Betty_. "You don't just marry one person, you marry the whole family."

As Robbins and his wife Judy had been married, and for all intents and purposes happily so, for more than a quarter of a century, Sara should have gone to him in the first place. If there was anyone she knew qualified to give marital advice, it was Doc. And it wasn't as if her other coworkers were any real help. Catherine seemed to find the whole thing hilarious. Hodges was just Hodges, there was no helping that. And avoiding Nick, whom Betty had taken quite a shine to for some reason or other, had been part of the reason she'd retreated to the morgue in the first place. That and to cool off and clear her head. After telling off her mother-in-law in the courtyard of Desert Palms, she'd sorely needed it.

"Parents worry," Robbins supplied as over cups of his illicitly brewed coffee, Sara finished giving him the Cliff Notes version of her latest trials and tribulations of the querulous mother-in-law variety. "It's normal."

Sara had a hard time keeping the incredulity out of her, "Even when their children are over fifty?"

"Even then."

She sipped at her coffee for a minute, appreciating the fact that her husband had indeed been right, big surprise. Apart from Greg's occasional outside offerings, the M.E. did have the best coffee in the building.

"You get along with Judy's parents okay?" she asked after a while.

"We've had our moments," Doc freely admitted. "Mostly it was her father with the problem. Kept asking when I was going to start being a proper doctor with proper patients.

"Asked pretty much every time we met until the day he died. But it stopped being a problem after a while. Selective hearing," he supplied at Sara's inquiring look. "Comes in handy. Works with spouses, too," he added with a grin.

Sara smiled in reply, until Doc ever solicitous asked, "Gil, get along with your family okay?"

Really not wanting to open that can of worms, she hastily replied, "Yeah, fine."

Mercifully, Robbins didn't press. Instead, putting down his cup and picking up his scalpel in preparation for a y-incision on a recent hit-and-run victim, he said, "Sara, just don't try too hard."

To which she let out a nervous chuckle. "You've met Betty. I'm not sure that's possible."

Having lately and repeatedly been on the receiving end of Betty Grissom's disapproval, Sara was only all too acutely aware of just how pervasive it could be. No wonder Grissom had grown up to be an almost obsessive workaholic. Not that Sara could exactly talk, but still.

"Just give it some time," insisted Doc gently. "These things usually work out."

Sara was almost afraid to ask. "And if they don't?"

"Be glad Christmas only comes but once a year."

Thankfully, it hadn't gotten as bad as that. Though what exactly had precipitated Betty showing up at the lab African violets in hand, had left Sara in some ways equally baffled. But she wasn't about to complain.

By that time, she had and in rather quick succession too, been flagrantly wrong about Julia Holden's role in Dr. Lambert's murder and in a fit of frustrated pique, not so gently told off her mother-in-law. All in all, none of it had been one of her finer moments.

She'd certainly never wanted for her husband's good counsel more. Marbles only went so far. And he'd been utterly incommunicado for nearly the better part of a week.

Of course by the time they were finally able to catch up, Sara hadn't exactly been in a hurry to confess to the mess she had made. Listening to her husband detail his entomological finds from 2,000 plus year old Mochican mass graves was, while granted a little gruesome, way, way more interesting. And Sara had the distinct feeling that if Betty hadn't shown up at just the moment she had, Grissom's comment of _Good,__ you__ kept__ busy_, would have only served as a preamble to a significantly longer and probing Q & A.

And she really hadn't been in the mood for any more questions.

Frankly, she was tired of them, all the questions and the probably well meant, but definitely misplaced, worry. She didn't understand the big deal. Never had.

She didn't worry. Grissom didn't worry. That was what mattered.

Or at least what should.

Didn't quite work out that way.

Still, it had been fairly easy to laugh off the faintly concerned and curious questions of her coworkers, even Greg's rather pointed _Sometimes __I__ wonder __if __you__ two __are __really __married_. The same from her mother-in-law, not so much.

Did she miss being with her husband?

What kind of a fool question was that? Hell, yes, of course she did. Everyday.

Would she rather have him home with her or to be wherever he was? Not to have to spend nights and days and weeks apart? Of course she did.

For one, despite Grissom's cover stealing and snoring, she always slept better with him in the bed beside her. And two, well Betty didn't need to know about two - or three or four for that matter. Sara wasn't about to intentionally tell tales about their sex life to anyone, particularly not her mother-in-law and from the way he practically bolted off the phone when his mother merely mentioned the subject, her husband wasn't about to either.

Ultimately though, she simply enjoyed being with him. Had nearly always had - all those months they were actively avoiding each other at all costs all those years ago notwithstanding. At work his presence had made some of the worst crime scenes a bit more bearable. Outside of work, beyond the lab, he'd enriched her life in ways she couldn't even begin to measure.

Albeit after more than half a lifetime alone, it was still strange sometimes, sharing a life together. Still strange to want - to need - someone beside you when you slept. To look forward to seeing that familiar smile from across the table. To have someone to note and notice the minutia of the day for in order to relate it later.

And no, it wasn't about just knowing you weren't alone. It was knowing you were in this life together. Even when _together _these days frequently involved being four to six thousand miles apart at any given time.

True, it was never the same as being in the same place, but in that voice on the other end of the line, in the email waiting in her inbox, in the brief and fleeting chime of a text, they were together then, too.

It was unconventional. This Sara knew; would and had frankly admitted as much.

She was just tired of feeling as if they had to justify their choices to the rest of the world, particularly when all she wanted was to love and be loved by him in all the imperfect ways they knew how.

Besides, who gets to decide what marriage is anyway?

When she and Grissom married there hadn't been the usual promises to _love,__honor __and __obey_, mentions of _in__ sickness __and __in __health_ or f_or __richer __or __for __poorer_, not even _till__ death __do __you __part,_ because those weren't the words either of them needed to say that day. Instead they promised harder things.

Absently fingering her wedding band, Sara recalled that evening, bright and beautiful as it had been. Remembered him saying as he'd slipped it on her finger, "With this ring, I promise to believe in you, dream with you, hope and trust in you.

"I promise to be there with you to celebrate the good times, but also to be a light and comfort in the dark ones, as you have been for me."

Good thing she had gone first. There was no following that. Not that she could have. There just weren't words. And if there had been, her mouth at that moment lacked the ability to move. Merely breathing had been an accomplishment, dumbstruck as she'd been.

And while she had sworn she was not going to fall prey to the cliché and cry, there had been happy tears then. They'd begun to itch at the corner of her eyes when she'd taken up his hand; blurred her vision in earnest as she'd said, "Gil, I love you and I will always love you, support you, dream and hope with you, grow with you."

Then there was no blinking them back when easing the simple gold band over his knuckles, she added, "With this ring, I give to you what has always been yours: my heart and all that I am and all I will become."

Yes, those were the promises you wanted not just to make, but keep. And for the most part they had.

Two, three, four, five, six thousand miles or more between them didn't make them any less married, any less committed to each other or the life they were working to build together.

Anyway, it was all just supposed to be temporary, her going back to work in Vegas. A few weeks to help out. But then a few weeks quickly became a few months. And those few months, a year and then nearly half that again. What else was there to do, their grant perpetually stuck in pending limbo? But then bureaucracy always did have a timing all its own and one which seldom had anything to do with real time. Already Grissom's tenure at the Sorbonne had come to an end, and yet they were still waiting.

So Sara continued at the lab and her husband took whatever consulting work came his way. Not that there was a dearth of it, quite the contrary. Grissom had never been so popular, or so Sara frequently teased. Sadly, none of the assignments were local and most kept him away for weeks at a time. It wasn't exactly the most optimal situation. Nor the most romantic. Practical though. And truth be told, the two of them tended more to the practical than romantic, with a few rather notable exceptions.

And of course they both would rather be together. Sara certainly didn't relish having him away three weeks out of four or more. But there was no way in hell she was going to ask him to give up his work, his career for her. He'd done that once already. And that was more than enough. She wasn't about to ask him to do it again. And she knew he wasn't about to ask her either.

Besides, it was just far too good to see Grissom excited as he was these days. Good to see his whole face light up, his eyes twinkle again, him beam, vibrant, enthusiastic, alive like he hadn't been when she'd left him and Vegas that second time. Now that irresistible boyish wonder of his, the one she'd fallen in love with all those years ago, was thankfully and wonderfully back.

And somehow it worked. It did, their life together apart.

So until their grant came through they Skyped or spoke or texted everyday or tried to. Saw each other once a month. Yet even continents apart, they shared mealtime discussions, regaled each other with anecdotes and incidents from their days, confessed setbacks and frustrations all in ways not unlike how they did when they lived under the same roof. Thanks to the Internet, they'd even been able to listen to baseball games together, something Sara had been surprised to discover she rather enjoyed.

All in all, even with them so much apart, it was a far better life than she could have ever managed to imagine for herself. Sure, it wasn't all wine and roses. But then Sara wasn't all that much into either wine or roses. And no, things weren't perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it was a good life, a sweet life, _la __dolce __vida_ as the Italians were wont to say. And one she valued accordingly.

Acceptance. Hope. Love. Home. Family. Perhaps against all odds, she'd found that with him and he with her.

And_ family_ wasn't a word Sara bandied about lightly, not really having one since she was twelve and even then her family hadn't been a family in any conventional sense of the word. And that had been gone in barely the space of a heartbeat and a scream.

She and Grissom, they were a family, and if only a family in a very small way, a family all their own all the same.

But Sara had no real way to tell Betty this. Not beyond what she'd already angrily, despairingly tried to convey that day at Desert Palms.

Of course that hadn't kept her mother-in-law from asking anyway. During one of their lunches, one of those which she had, as Grissom had reminded her only minutes before, _survived__ just __fine_, Betty had not unsurprisingly asked after her daughter-in-law's family.

Grissom obviously hadn't told his mother anything of Sara's history. He hadn't told anyone as far as she knew, ever holding as he did to the belief that it was her story to tell or not and when she was ready. That afternoon at lunch, Sara hadn't quite been, but not because of all her usual reasons: hurt, fear, shame, all her decades of secrets.

_Later_, Sara had awkwardly signed after a long moment of silence and stillness.

Then taking a deep breath, she'd said, giving the neatly dressed translator Betty had brought along a hesitant smile, "When my signing is better. I want to tell you myself."

Strangely, Betty seemed to understand and like Doc, hadn't pressed. She only nodded and giving her daughter-in-law a soft, sympathetic smile, very much like Sara had seen Grissom wear from time to time, she squeezed her hand in a way Sara recognized as one of her mother-in-law's rare gestures of genuine affection.

Maybe these things really did have a way of working out given time.

Perhaps, Sara thought, life was a little like that amber necklace Grissom had given her. What ultimately gave it its real value turned out not to be its perfections, but rather its imperfections. And ultimately it was the moments, small as they were, which mattered most and lasted longest.

Okay, maybe that hadn't been the message her husband intended. Probably he meant no meaning at all. He'd simply seen the pendant and thought it would suit her, just as he'd said. Though knowing her husband as she did, Sara was fairly certain there was more to it than he was telling. There usually was with him.

Still, she could almost hear him intone in that airy, yet erudite way he reserved for quotations, "Sometimes a necklace is just a necklace, my dear."

Then as if the mere thought of him could conjure him into being, there was Grissom standing in the doorway to their bedroom, coat donned and hers in hand saying, "Sara, it's nearly seven. If we don't hurry -"

But the rest of his admonishment was and without warning, cut off with a kiss.

Even though he soon and almost instinctively relaxed into it and her, when they eventually broke apart, he couldn't keep the surprise out of his stammer of "What was that for?"

"I love you," was all Sara replied.

Which was ever answer enough.

He beamed and tugging her to him, readily returned her kiss with equal ardor.

Sara almost sighed. But then a kiss was never just a kiss with him. It never had been.

"So are you ready yet?" he asked after a time.

"Just need you to zip me up."

His fingers dawdled about the nape of her neck before slipping slowly down her spine then lingered overlong over the tab.

"Gil," she actually did sigh, busying herself with the unnecessary straightening of his tie, "You keep looking at me like that and we really will be late."

For his eyes had deepened, softened into that openly affectionate, intimate sort of gaze.

"Need I remind you," he said above the obedient rasp of the zip, "you kissed me first."

Though he was the one who leaned in to kiss her a third time.

"Speaking of kissing," Sara laughed, rubbing the telltale traces of lipstick from his face. "Although, maybe I should have left it. Give your mother ideas."

Genuinely at ease for the first time in hours, she grinned. Inexplicable and sudden as it was, the butterflies were gone and Sara found herself not nearly nervous or worried or even concerned.

Perhaps both her husband and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had a point. _La__ vie __nous__ a__ enseigné__ que __l__'__amour __ne __consiste __pas__ en __regardant__ à __l__'__un __l__'__autre __mais __en __regardant __à __l__'__extérieur __ensemble __en __même __direction_. Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

And that, that Sara could do. Even when it meant dinner with Betty.

Grissom having already helped her on with her coat, Sara extended her hand, insisting, "Keys. I'm driving. You two can gossip all you want in the back."

xxxxxxx

A/N: Want to find out what happens when Grissom takes Sara up on her challenge about the dress? See "A Team Effort."


End file.
